What Kind Of World Do I Live in?

This is not an idle question.

I've got my 53rd birthday coming up soon.

I have two master's degrees (basically), write as much music as I can, am an indifferently talented tango dancer, have a ton of great friends and the sky overhead tonight is spangled with stars, stars that shine strong enough to punch their way through the lights of the city.

Town.

City.

Whatever.

I'm nursing an ouzo at Geno's rock bar, a punk rock evening was scheduled to start 20 minutes ago - but, of course, they're punkers, so they're only just loading in right now - which means they all came straight to the bar and ordered big shots of ice-cold Jägermeisters.

Hopefully I'll be out before the show begins.  This doesn't mean I wouldn't be able to hear it - or at least sense the vibrations - from my apartment.  It's just across Bosnia and if they really take off I can often pick the sound up, faintly.

This is all relevant because my life, part-time job and all, is so much more involved, more intense, than it ever was when I was teaching in public schools.

It's as if two more heaping tablespoons of Nestle's Quick have been dumped into my eight-ounce glass of milk and been thoroughly stirred.  Much, MUCH more chocolate taste.  Much more fun.

I suppose that it means I'm doing more good by just being myself more often.

We shall see.

Dancing On Brick With Dry Feet

It's been a rule-of-thumb I've had for years: "Do not become happy about Spring until the street crews begin sweeping up the debris from the melted snowbanks on the sidewalks".

This rule has served me well for the quarter-century (or so) that I've lived in Portland.  It isn't always accurate - I distinctly remember going cross-country skiing on my birthday - April 18 - so I wouldn't bet the rent.

Still, it's a very New England thing to do, waiting until the earth's dihedral angle makes it pretty much physically impossible for snow to form.

Hurricanes, hail, the occasional rain of blood, yes - snow, not so much.

So I am allowing myself to be mildly heartened by the cleanliness (relative cleanliness) of the sidewalk outside of JavaNet's window.  The people that co-ordinate the Old Port are really good at keeping a tourist-friendly air about the place.  For that reason I'm not surprised that the sidewalks have been swept.

One can get away with a sweater and a corduroy blazer rather than a full-length top coat, or, heaven forfend, a parka.

Those might be the watchwords for the day - "getting away with".

Words to live by.

Grazing Day - Bride of Grazing Day

Well, everyone likes a good feed.

Native tradition refers to common meals, especially those that are part of celebrations or dances, as "feasts".

There's something reassuring, warming, comforting and very, very serious about calling such a meal a "feast".

We don't really use it in a sacred sense much these days.  Mostly, as least as I've seen, the term "feast" implies we're going to stuff ourselves sick, literally sick, just conspicuously consume food because we can do it.

It comes across, at least to me, as saying "look what we have, look at what we own, so much, so much beyond what we need, that we can make ourselves sick, because we have it and we can."

I suppose we can see a bit of both sense at work in how the Orchard celebrated its six-month party.  

Grazing Day had been declared back-of-house about a week ahead.  Actually, we'd missed the day - so much had been going on that we had to put it off.

Still, it was reassuring and somehow a little bit silly to see such an amazing collection of noshes.

There were some actually entrees available besides a ton of finger food.

For myself - and others - I'd brought gluten-free crackers and also some cheese sticks.  

My friend Mia is now in recovery from a serious stroke and attending to her transfer to a more supportive rehab facility took up my cooking time.

Not a bad reason to miss out - but still I'm sure my Mom's spirit was frowning slightly at the sight of me buying something to brink rather than making something from scratch.

It's not that she never bought anything herself, it's just that homecooked counted for more in her book - especially if you had time to make it - anything more than ten minutes.

So saying, it was fun to look at the table back-of-house, crowded with yummies, tracking the ravages of our ... well, you couldn't really call it "hunger" it was more "rapaciousness" ... the ravages of our eating chunks of dips, piles of cookies and crackers, the diminishment of pyramids of cheese.

I know I am in danger of contradicting myself but it was fun to think that our respect, joy and love for each other was expressed in such concrete ways. 

You can measure the feeling we have for each other by the variety of food we had to share.

What a strange, odd feeling.

I know I've had similar spreads at schools but this was something special - perhaps because I am so invested in the feelings and thoughts that brought us all together to celebrate and share.

It's a nice place to come from.

tango In the Blue Sky - 3

A lot more people - more than 20, including those getting dinner at the bar - have arrived.  It looks an even mix of folks from Portland and Portsmouth.

The evening is progressing very well.

If the idea is to provide "atmosphere" then we're well on our way.

I'm working on a soda and lime (sadly, I have a long drive home and I'm saving my booze budget for Party More - believe it or not I'm going to the Empire when this is done) and have managed to have a couple of dances.

As usual it's more fun to watch and see how people relate to the music and structure of phrasing in the dance.

I've finished a new tango this afternoon - the piece is scored and ready to edit.  My original idea was to work on the score here before this all started but the fun started and I got dragged in.

Besides, the lamb pizza was so rich I couldn't finish it.

Sue me.

Anyway, this has turned out to be a lively experience.

People are dancing to the point that they're actually getting tired and flopping into the leather booth with a sigh and small gasp.

Adrianna has chosen a very classic set of songs.  They're all three minutes or slightly longer.

Sometimes you go to these things and DJ's will chooses more pop - or alternative - music that has a solid danceable beat - but runs for six or seven minutes and tends to wring you out.

Not physically, but psychically.  

It's hard to be inventive for that length of time - even for those of us who make their livings by being inventive.

It's hard to relax when you can't relax.

Adrianna has been called away by the waitress - who, by the way, has been very attentive, supportive and interested in this experience - to attend a lady who is asking about lessons.

This may go in  unexpected directions.

A lot of converesations - both on the floor and off the floor.

There is a knot of locals in the bar that I observed when getting my soda.  When cortinas are played - generally Adrianna uses pop songs - the folks in the bar tend to smile and recognize them and make "now that's more like it - who wants to listen to that other shit".

Oh, by the way - for those of you playing at home a cortina ("curtain") is the short piece of music, generally non-tango, that separates each group of three songs that constitutes the length of a couple's social dance.

Tango in the Blue Sky - 2

The Blue Sky is part of the Atlantic Hotel - i think it's called - and it's on Beach Street in York.

The Atlantic Ocean is a stone's throw - maybe even a pebble - from the balcony window.

It is a lovely place, the service exemplary and the food very tasty.

Even closer than the ocean is a bowling alley.  I thought those crashing noses above the music were waves - they're out-of-season Mainers throwing splits.

Everyone chooses their own gutters, I suppose.

The conversation around the table has been lively and comfortable.  We've been chatting about our histories as tangueros and tangueras and how things have changed in our respective communities.

It's a pleasant way to get away from my desk - but not my computer.  I'd spend some time dancing but we have four leaders (guys) and two followers (ladies) and one of them is spending time chatting up interested students.

Oh wait, another couple has arrived.

The basic math has not changed.

Still, this is a rather nice way to spend an evening.

They've come from a West Coast Swing class in Portsmouth.  I know there is a connection in a ballroom sort of way - even Salsa has a relationship to tango, but there's only so much I can worry about here.

More later - this is turning out to be a very interesting evening.

Tango in the Blue Sky -1

Well, believe it or not, York Beach exists outside of the time from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

I have the lamb pizza slice to prove it.

Adriana Pinto, doyenne of the Portsmouth Tango community has organized an evening of dancing  for various and sundry from both the PortTown communities.  Like so many places we're not really expected to be part of the buying crowd - mostly we are to add ambience to the experience. 

There is small crowd of dancers and a small but growing bunch of diners watching.

And they're getting a great experience.

The room has warm wood underneath, bright lights and a spinner lure in a glass case (shown in the pic) big enough to hook a right whale.  They've kindly dropped the lights down and turned off their sound system so Adriana's music can be heard.

It's really a very lovely space.  

I shudder to think what it will be like in Summer time:

• crowded
  
• full of indifferent, slightly pushy people
  
• hot
  

I can't wait to see it in Summer time:

• full of life
  
• catching people in the net of good music
  
• serving ice drinks with bright little umbrellas in them

This evening is progressing well.  People on the sides are watching and talking - half their attention on the dances and half on their drinks.  

More as the evening progresses...

Letting it Slide

Today was a very busy, very odd day at the Orchard.

Everything that started well turned strange, then came back to being fine.

I was subbing for a colleague, missed a bus and wound up taking a cab - which was basically half the pay I made (well, almost).  Then I left my nifty I.D. tag at home on my keyboard because I put it there so I wouldn't forget it.  We made do with a name card but I still felt incredibly silly nonetheless.

Then I got the wrong computer out of the stacks - twice.

And finally I got caught up with helping an Irish woman get the simplest of cases for her iPod Touch.  It should have been simple but her accent and beguiling air put me off my stroke.  

Wrong case.  It was for an iPhone.

Wrong screen covering.  She has the earlier generation of Touch.  Which I found out after putting the covering on for her and seeing it didn't fit.

Turns out she and her mate were performing this evening at Longfellow Square.  So I made it a point to tell as many people as possible in the 60 minutes between getting home and leaving for the show.

It was a great concert.  The band Slide is mostly from Dublin and made up of 5 people.  A keyboardist/utility wind player (whom I met in the shop), two squeezebox players (button accordion and German concertina) a bazouki player (rather than guitar) and a violinist/vocalist (the beguiling Black Irish woman in the shop).

Mostly they flew over their instruments in classic Irish style, displaying formidable technique and faultless rhythm.  It was a lively, entertaining show.  

The singer, Eithne (two syllables) sang several lovely solo pieces with a real sense of compassion in the texts.

All told it was a good evening and a great end to the day.  I'm really tired but in a good mood and tempted to head back over to One Longfellow and ask them all out for a drink.  It's funny to want to do that and I'm torn between reaching out to people I think I'd really connect with and getting to bed to reflect on such an emotionally full day.

Interesting.

It's Pi Day! It's Pi Day!

Clear.  Cold.  

To paraphrase "The Lion In Winter" tonight will be pocked with stars.  I can't wait.

I'm in one of those odd moods - it seems strange to see it even typed out - "odd moods" - where life seems like switching positions in a great, brilliant parade.

For one moment I'm a little boy sitting on the sidewalk (and I can show you the spot on Boston Ave. in Tulsa) watching a band march by, listening to it belt out "Manhattan Beach", totally hypnotized by the sound of the big bass drum ...

... and then I'm blasting a baritone bugle and marching through Union Square in San Francisco, tearing the night open with "In the Stone", watching people watch me as part of the Chinese New Year's parade ...

... and life is like that, a parade where you watch wonderful things pass by purely for your entertainment, then you get be part of the excitement, creating moments for the world ... and the view caroms wildly from one to the other, you watch, you march, you watch, you march - and the satori of experience leaves you giddy ...

.... and you have a piece of pie.

Today is Pi Day - Einstein's Birthday and the 3rd of March - 3/14 - and if you eat a piece of pie at 4 p.m. (1600) you'll be really really lucky and great ideas will come to you because it's 3/14.16 or 3.1416, chance will favor your prepared mind and it's just cool.

I've been offered a part in a play - a professor friend from USM wants to do a play by a Canadian Native (up there they call us Aboriginals), mostly about how Elders also have to have lives too - set in a conference about Native sexuality it brings several couples together and re-arranges them until they make more sense.

I wasn't really sanguine about it but a read-through of the script this morning really had me laughing.  He gets the voice of Native humor - self-deprecating and devastatingly apropos.  If the timing of the delivery is right it could be a real hoot.

I'm just worried about how much memorization and delivery I'd have to do.  Might be a good challenge, if circumstances permit.

And the pie?  I'm down in the window of JavaNet again and yet another piece of wonderful pie, apple this time, has met it's purpose in life.

Washed it down with a big mug of hot coffee.

Maybe this satori, this swing of position, is the only way my poor, poor mind can handle such a broad point of view, that trying to know either all the joy or all the sorrow in the universe will drive you mad.

Mostly I think - at least until I have another cup of coffee, no more pie, thank you - that you shouldn't get on the Tilt-A-Whirl and expect the ride to be smooth.

It's dark out now and the Saturday night parade is starting outside the window here at JavaNet.  Sometimes I watch the parade - sometimes I am the parade.

Either way - it's fun.  And there's always pie.

Back In the Barber Chair Again

The great melt continues.  If this keeps up we might well have our sidewalks back by the end of the weekend.

Our temps are moving above 40 for the next week.  The snow is looking pretty ratty by now.  Cigarette butts, dog poo - everything is thawing out.

It actually doesn't smell too bad.  Back in the early 90's, before Portland passed strong leash laws the March thaw - sometimes the February one - would see all the residue of thousands (seemingly) of dogs that had been buried and frozen in the snow start to thaw and become biologically active.

THAT was a memorable olfactory experience.

I'm sitting here in my barber chair at the Empire - Party More (Ian and Chris) are laying down thumpy dance beats - mostly strange 70's mixes.  I'm told that the music gets more moderne as the evening progresses.

I'll have to take their word.  This - believe it or not - is my wind-down from the work day, as I almost always seem to be working on Thursday.

Besides it's fun to get out and do something totally different than my usual routine.  Believe me - this is as different as it gets.

Tough news on the personal fronts.  My real older sister Sue is in the hospital with a stomach problem, which has placed her on dialysis.  This is not good news.  She's tough, Sue is, but this bodes a difficult fight.

Also, my surrogate older sister Mia is in the local hospital recovering from a serious stroke.  I've seen the MRI and it's not much of an attractive prospect either.  Her voice has recovered - as have her spirits - but there is still some vision processing problem.  More surgery may be on tap but for now, mostly recovery, rest and rehab.

I admit to being worried.  

I did get a chance to attend the dress rehearsal of an opera last night - actually two one-acts by Puccini.  I'll write a more formal review tomorrow.  Right now I need to head home and put my feet up.  Otherwise I might have more Black Russians than is good for me - which is exactly one, which I've had already.

Thursday night.  Strange place.

Roses In the Window of Dunkin' Donuts

I'm thinking that we might have turned a corner. 

Today Daylight Savings Time went into effect.  Or it ended.  Or we just switched the clocks for the ever loving hell of it.

I don't know and I've never really been sure. Still when they tell me to switch my clock I switch it and if we all agree to see the same elephant in the middle of the road then that will explain the loss of all the peanuts.

The first clue, outside of the obvious change in the weather was the strange appearance of a basket of plastic roses in the window of the Dunkin' Donuts at the corner of Congress and Oak.  

It seemed a strange thing to see.  We've had a very warm stretch of weather - "warm" being defined by temps averaging more than 40 degrees.

There are major holes in the snow banks, the ice dams on the roofs are all receding.  I like it.  It seemed like the whole town was reaching its limit for dealing with all the winter weather.

In some cases it's not really very pretty.  The snow had the advantage of smoothing over all the mess on the ground, including that left by its own melting.

But now I'm seeing large patches of brown grass starting to appear in around the bases of the trees in Deering Oaks.  

The skating pond is off limits.

Even though it's only three or four feet deep on the strongest days the City (reasonably, I think) doesn't want to take the chance that someone would fall through and sue the City's ass off.

I did mention there are a lot of lawyers in town, didn't I?

Nonetheless I'm feeling ready for a change, to begin slouching through Spring to Summer.  I'm not sure at all what this will bring to me.  

No matter what I think this change will happen.  Probably be good to think about and enjoy.

All of the detritus is starting to thaw.  Cigarette butts, dirt, pieces of paper - all are starting to appear as their icy covering melts away.

Not a pretty sight - but hopeful transitions often are not pretty sights - they may be beautiful, maybe even terribly beautiful, but not pretty.  

We have to go through on our way to another place.

It's a sense of the meta-meaning of the snow - it has a meaning that comes separate from its surface illusion.  It's partly what you see and partly what you feel and then mostly what you feel about what you feel.

Very useful to think about - but I don't want to be limited purely to thinking.

No matter.  The sun is becoming warm and our curbs are coming back as well as the warm red brick of the sidewalks.  Whatever lessons, trials, triumphs or possibilities attached to this Winter are starting to run out and a new set are taking their place.

We will be different people in this new season.  

We will be the same people with different air and ground to live in .

I'm very curious - I'm always curious - to see what we will all become as it goes around.

More Guys, More Snow, Way More Loud Machines

Facebook gallery is here.

I (sort of ) apologize to those of friends who have a more precise approach to grammar and the use of language.

Several writers, including a Hugo award winner, have been my friends.  Lot's of teachers, several college professors.

God bless my poor sweet lost soul, buried in an oubliette of freedom, swept up in a forest of mixed metaphors.

It's gotten me in trouble, as I am cursed with the need to say what's on my mind first - or worse, what's in my heart.  The verbs can be as tensed or relaxed as they like.

Direct expression is driven by the need to get an idea across, to sketch a feeling, to catch lightening in the bottle of words.

I got my hair cut today.  The crew at Satori, particularly Paige, my stylist, are a mixed and enthusiastic lot and I think I see some of the same shared madness that characterizes the Orchard.  This is a comfortable vibe for me, fun and familiar.

Since it is the first Thursday of the week my leaving Doctor's Row was marked by a parking ban on my side of the street.  In Autumn it allows for street sweeping - in Winter, it's snow removal.  This meant a police car drove down along the snowbanked curb, followed by a small army of tow trucks, all hungry to catch the unwary car left by its owner in defiance of the ban.

This parking ban tow routine is a fixture of life in Portland's Wintertime.  Cars get towed when snowstorms demand the streets be cleared and you don't get it back unless you pay cash for the fine - and any unpaid parking tickets.

Today while coming home from a hair appointment I was delighted to see a small train of big, big trucks stopped in front of my apartment house.  It was the work of only a minute to dash inside, throw down my coat and bag, grab my camera and start shooting.

I think they were clearing blockage from the front of the giant snowblower.  Two city guys were stabbing at the inside of the business end with long steel rods, probably clearing out the intake.

The engine roared to life in short order and the parade was off, down the street.

The snowblower was chewing up the snowbank, right to the curb.  Snow would come flying out in a solid stream into a dumptruck that was slowly leading the conga line.

Needless to say it was loud, it was messy and it was really, really cool.

Just like the other night it was fun to see the kind of hard work it took to get things to work in Portland.  The conga line slowly headed down Doctor's Row, roaring the the bright morning sun.

Perhaps I am something of a geek - things loom so large for me, situations that other people seem to just sail through seem to freeze me into paralysis of confusion.  I'm sure everyone has things that happen that way but they seem to be a lot more strange for me.

At the same time I can get a huge jolt out of such a simple, complex thing as big trucks throwing snow in the bright, bright sun of a Winter morning in Maine.

Go figure.

Zero degrees outside, 98 degrees inside

It is a brilliant, cloudless day.   The sunlight is just moving from the warm red of dawn, turning white and warming the bow window. The snow still looks new, still unmelted, whiter than Easter linen; light blasts off of it, filling my apartment.

And it's freakin' zero damn degrees out there.

I can't wait to get out.  

I have today off, so some housekeeping, bill paying, financial work.  Then back to work on the new piece interrupted by the storm.  I've uploaded a video from last week's storm, just so you see what it's like.

Guys In Big Trucks, Moving Snow

MobileMe gallery is here.

The result of a major snowstorm is expressed in major piles of snow.

We measure by people left in the dark, bent fenders, branches snapped, ice dams and guys in big trucks, moving snow.

I got off work around 9:30.  It had been a good, long day with a surprisingly large part of the moderate crowd being interested in buying computers.  Stocking up for the storm, I suppose.

We had closed the store having polished the screens of all the devices, restocked and "fronted" all the stuff hanging from the pegs.  Our conversation had ranged wide, covering our histories - funny stories, recipes that defined our families.

Everything from fry bread made by my mother to curried chicken by my musical colleague PLB's wife.  Pizza from M's mom.

We left the Mall chatting like seagulls, our voices echoing off the walls, muffled by the piles of snow dried by the frigid air.

Mrs. Beadle was parked by herself in the middle of the back lot, all alone amongst mountains of snow, mountains reaching up for almost a full story.

I was removing the covering towel from the window when I heard large noises, made by large engines.

A bulldozer roared by me, scraping the snow from its path.  It pulled up to the snowpile, the load bucket rising gracefully to the top and emptying out.

It then pulled back, roared off back to the next place and another pulled around to repeat the process.

I had my camera with me and took some time to set it up - I had to throw out only half the shots taken.

I tried to wave at the drivers but they seemed much more intent on getting stuff moved.  

As a community we all get along in such trying weather by the good work and effort - the professionalism - of many people.  Roads are opened, power lines repaired, groceries sold, sidewalks are cleared.

It's kind of neat to see this happening.

At the same time, like a lot of men, we're still sort of little boys, still fascinated by trains, trucks and large machines.

Take a look at some of the pics in the MobileMe gallery.

Balloons Against the Snow

Somehow I think the balloons aren't going to pull this one out.

Sunday morning, March 1st.  Twenty degrees.  Cloudy.  Slow flurries of snow are beginning to fall.

The balloons are floating from a stoop on the side of the apartment across from mine. On the way to Bosnia.

 I think they're having a party.

I've taken a shift at the Orchard and have to be there in a couple of hours.  Still have to pick up prescriptions on the way.

The National Weather Service tells me that 6 to 12 inches of snow are on the way as well (sorry about the verb tense there).

Indeed, just in the few moments it's taken to type this the snow has begun to accelerate - even though the real storm isn't due to arrive for almost 12 hours.

Since I have the kind of brain that is easily addled by the observation of transitions in anything it's been a very engaging few minutes.  Just driving over here to JavaNet was fascinating.  

It's like seeing the world from inside a snow globe - huge soft flakes drift down, slowly, gently dancing in the wind.  They slide over the tops of cars parked in front of me (of course, if they were parked behind me I wouldn't be able to see them - and they'd make an unholy mess in the coffee shop).

There are actually two motorized wheel chairs in the picture above - I had to stop in the intersection to take it.  The first one - hidden - has pink bands, what I suppose are rubber bumpers.  You can just see them on the left.  They roll down the street, bundled up like up-armored APC's - which, I suppose, in some way, they are.

Or, I suppose they are, in some way.  

I can tell which cars have been sitting, perhaps left over from last night in the Old Port.  They are starting to collect dustings of snow, the ones parked this morning still have enough warmth in their hoods to keep clean.

I suspect that will change.

And so I'm getting ready to head to the Orchard to cover a shift.  One of my former students is having car trouble and is prepping it in advance to the coming apocalypse.

A small army of "formers" came in yesterday.  It was fun to see - maybe I did more good than at first apparent.

We'll see.

An actor friend has stopped by to shelter from the wind - poor actors, they always seem so defenseless against the cold.

Yeah, like composers are such a thick-skinned lot.

So, coffee and conversation, and yes he's got a piece of pie too.

Damn fine cherry pie.